"RedPhone Security agrees to grant licenses for such uses in a fair and nondiscriminatory manner. This statement applies to the Disclosed Patent Information, including all amendments in all nations as published during the course of prosecution."

I'm sure you are well aware that "fair and nondiscriminatory manner"is the usual "newspeak" term for discriminating free software.E.g: if someone only ask 10$ per-copy it means you cannotdistribute without having some copy counting mechanisms in place.

"Any party wishing to request a license under the patent applications listed in Schedule A and/or any issued patents from such applications is encouraged to contact RedPhone Security."

Which clarifies they reserve the right to provide licenses on a caseby case basis (yes, under the non-yada-yada etc). This is very differentfrom cases where comprehensive blanket licenses are given by relevantcompanies for inclusion of their technologies in standard setting papers.

Which begs the question -- why all this is disclosed barely two monthsbefore the (supposed) approval of this draft standard? To hushcriticism? To make IETF think harder about withdrawing after investinga lot of time and work into this?

Regretfully, we already saw in some industries the advent of litigiouscompanies messing with industry standards (a sad refresher is here)

Not long ago, we saw other important standard bodies loses muchof their credibility due to similar tactics (I obviously refer tothe ISO/IEC DIS 29500 farce).

I obviously don't want IETF to fall into a similar trap. It'simportant to reject this proposal so all of us can trust any RFCor STD for what they are -- a free specification for anybody toimplement as they see fit.

Furthermore. Patent disclosure at the end of the process insteadof the beginning is not an example of honesty (do you thinkthey "forgot" they applied for these patents?)

IMHO, the only way for the IETF to protect itself and its reputationfrom such predatory behaviour is to apply a mechanism to deter suchcompanies. Maybe something along the line of:

"You made us work X months without trusting us with your secret plan? Good. You lost our trust for the next X months. You are welcome to come back with different proposal *after* this time lapse."

I urge you to reconsider and not risk the great achievements ofInternet in general and the IETF in particular for a short term "gain".

Thank you very much for all your efforts,

[This mail was prepared and sent by free software, running on a free operating system, abiding by freely available Internet standards]